Piqué’s Kings League Leveraging Streamers to Draw and Engage Fans

Piqué’s Kings League Leveraging Streamers to Draw and Engage Fans

Kings League just hit its two-year anniversary (Jan 1, ’23). 

The 7x7 soccer outfit founded by former Spanish star Gerard Piqué is off to a strong start. Fans are consuming games (see: 80mm hours of content viewed), engaging with the property on social channels (see: 18k engagements per post, roughly twice the number the NBA receives), the league is profitable, it is selling out historic venues, and last May its parent company, Kosmos, closed on a ~$65mm Series A round.

Left Lane Capital and Fillip invested the bulk of the growth capital.

But Kings League is not building a competitor to La Liga or the English Premier League. With a gamified ruleset the emerging property is NOT going to be confused with those established leagues (think: matches start 1v1, coaches are awarded strategic wildcards, a giant dice determines the number of players on the field at various points in the game).

And The Soccer Tournament, Big3, and Unrivaled aren’t strong comps either (never mind the last two are 3×3 basketball). 

That is because Kings League is taking a next-gen approach to distribution–and ultimately to building fandom. Each of its clubs are owned by influential streamers who broadcast team games across their respective channels to existing, highly engaged, communities (think: Twitch, YouTube, Kik, TikTok).

The league live streams matches across its O&O channels too.

Piqué came up with the concept for Kings League during the summer of ’22. The Barcelona star had stopped watching football on television.

“Basically, for [the same] reasons that are also happening to the next generation,” he said.

The broadcasts were too long and there wasn’t enough scoring.

He thought there was an opportunity to create a faster pace, more dynamic version of the game (think: 40 minutes, fewer players, shorter field), and to make the fans a more integral part of the experience.

Traditional football fans "don't have any [say] whatsoever in decisions being made, like [entering] new competitions, the times of the games, [or] the rules," Piqué said. 

Kings League sways in the opposite direction. Its fans can vote on everything from the color of the playing surface (currently black) to where the league final is played (Malaga won).

“This is one of the reasons why they are so engaged [with] the product,” Piqué said.

Well, that and the league’s unique approach to distribution. Each of its 12 franchises is owned by an endemic streamer (i.e. a true soccer fan) who serves as the face of the club and streams games to his/her audience across platforms.

It’s important to understand that there is a fundamental difference between streamers and other famous people, influencers, or content creators with large followings.

"Players like me, celebrities, we are on TV all the time and because of that we have a lot of recognition. But we don't have [the same level of] engagement with our [fans]," Piqué said. 

Streamers regularly participate in two-way conversations and interact directly with their viewers.

As a result, they “have created a link [and loyalty] that is much more powerful than the one we have with our fans,” Piqué said. “Everything that they do, [their] community follows.”

That includes embracing a new sports league.

Kings League posted “higher [viewership] than [many] La Liga games, which here in Spain is a religion,” during its first season, Piqué said.

More than 500,000 devices would regularly tune in to simultaneously to view league games. 

Those fans have shown up in-person too. The inaugural Kings League championship game was played in front of a sold-out crowd of 92,000 fans at Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium.

Kosmos rolled out Queen’s League in the wake of that first season. Each of the 12 franchises now has both a men’s and women’s club.

There have been two Kings and Queens League seasons played in Spain since, and two more sold-out finals (60,000 seats at Athletico Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium and 30,000 seats at Malaga’s La Rosaleda Stadium). Tickets to the latter were distributed in 30 minutes.

“After seeing all that success, we [decided to] expand,” Piqué said.

South America was an obvious first stop. Kings League had built up a large fan base on the continent because of its Spanish roots.

“We started [Kings League Americas] in February 2024. 12 different [franchises and] presidents,” Piqué said. “Four from Mexico, two from Colombia, one from Argentina, one from Peru, one from Chile, [one from Venezuela, one from the Dominican Republic and one from the U.S].”

And like the Spanish league, each Kings League Americas club is owned and fronted by a prominent streamer. Soccer stars like Chicharito (Mexico) and Jamie Rodriguez (Columbia) were paired up with content creators to add some credibility. 

The approach worked again. The league’s inaugural final was played in front of 80,000 fans at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.

League leadership recognized that replicating the model in countries around the globe would take time. And they were eager to quickly establish the brand worldwide. 

So, Kings League decided to hold a 32-team ‘Club World Cup’ last June. It featured teams from the Spanish League and Kings League Americas, and wildcards were issued to streamer-led squads from a host of other soccer-crazed countries (including Brazil, France, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Japan). 

The tournament set Twitch’s all-time viewership record in Italy despite the games starting at 3a local time (averaging more than 550K viewers/game). There was similar enthusiasm for the event in several other countries (see: an average of 700,000 French fans tuned in).

“After that we decided [with] all these countries having literally exploded, [we have to launch domestic leagues],” Piqué said.

So, the company went out and raised some capital in the Spring of ‘24. 

Italy and Brazil are up first on the expansion roadmap. Those leagues will debut in February and March of ‘25, respectively.

But there are plans to announce several additional markets in the weeks ahead. The goal is to have eight to ten local leagues running by the end of the year.

Kosmos is also planning to host its World Cup of Clubs annually (it is their version of Champions League) and its World Cup of Nations event every two years.

The ‘25 Nations World Cup, a 16-team event (Jake Paul is president of the U.S. team), is currently underway in Italy. The first round averaged 10mm unique viewers per matchday.

Kings League has given ownership of franchises to high-profile streamers, like Paul, in exchange for their commitment to growing awareness of and fandom for the club. 

“They can create a lot of value [for Kosmos and themselves] by creating a community that is very engaged with the team,” Piqué said. “In Spain, one of the smallest teams in terms of audience did the first transaction [after 11 months]. They sold 15% of the franchise for $600,000. Three months later, one of the biggest [clubs] rejected an offer to sell 49% at a $10mm valuation.”

That organization went on to win the club World Cup. The presumption is its value has only risen since.

A three-year vesting period and minimum KPIs help to guarantee the streamers’ continued commitment to the league. As does the $1mm in available prize money each season.

But Kings League isn’t just a long-term asset appreciation play. Its clubs make money on a year-to-year basis. 

"We created a model that is very good for being profitable, not only at the league level but [for each of] the teams," Piqué said.

Each of the domestic leagues has a salary cap (which doesn’t exist in traditional European soccer), and player compensation is nominal. Clubs don’t have to pay out big money to players. The streamers are the stars.

Players are “normally tier 3, tier 4, tier 5 in Spain,” Piqué said.

The first 10 on each team are selected draft-style by the streamer and his/her community, and are paid for by the league. Streamers can choose to pay three additional players from outside of the league’s 300-player pool and for coaching/training at their own expense. 

So, Kings League clubs have limited costs on the player side. And they are entitled to keep any local sponsorship revenue generated, along with any incremental income earned from their streaming channels.

Proceeds from league level sponsorships and kit sales are shared with the teams too, and that income has become meaningful (think: eight figures). Kosmos also generates revenues from ticket sales, merchandising and licensing, and digital content. 

Right now, the company’s goal remains to distribute Kings and Queens League games as broadly as possible to maximize the number of fans seeing and engaging with its product. But the Kings League parent co. could always explore monetizing its media rights in a more efficient –or traditional– manner in the future.

If/when the league reaches critical mass in a market it will re-evaluate.

Kings League isn’t without competition. Ballers League, a 6v6 league based in Germany, recently announced $33mm in funding. 

And similar steamer-led properties have emerged in Italy and Mexico.

“When something works, competitors appear. When you are copied, it means you do something right.” Piqué said. 

Kings League believes it has an advantage in being first to market. Leadership also sees its global presence and franchise ownership model as differentiators.

“All the [others leagues] pay a fee to the streamer,” Piqué said. “The streamer is the face of the team, but it’s just a commercial deal and you can feel it. When [someone] owns a team, [they] really care.” 

And they invest the time and effort in naturing it. Remember, the streamers are the most important cog in this system.

“If you have big streamers, then you bring big communities to the league,” Piqué said.

Traditional sports properties should take note.

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